Federal judge stops Alabama from throwing trans-supportive doctors in jail

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/05/judge-blocks-alabama-law-imprisoning-doctors-assigning-medications-trans-youth/

The state government said that gender-affirming care for trans people is “experimental.” The judge said doctors know better than politicians.

By Daniel Villarreal Monday, May 16, 2022

Photo: Shutterstock

A Trump-appointed federal judge has blocked portions of Alabama’s so-called “Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act,” a law that punishes adults who help transgender children access gender-affirming healthcare.

The law, which went into effect on May 8, was immediately challenged by families with trans kids, gender-affirming medical professionals, and the U.S. Justice Department. The law threatened prosecution against trans-supportive adults and 10 years in prison for trans-affirming medical professionals.

Related: Gay Alabama lawmaker’s righteous rant goes viral as Republicans criminalize trans-friendly doctors

Last Friday, Judge Liles C. Burke of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama temporarily blocked parts of the law that made it a felony to prescribe hormones and puberty blockers to trans youth, saying that the law is likely to cause irreparable harm if it goes into effect while the lawsuits works their way through the court system.

Burke’s decision said parents have a fundamental right to provide their children with medically-accepted treatments. Hormones and puberty blockers are used to treat various medical conditions in non-trans youth. But since Alabama’s law only sought to punish the drugs’ use by transgender youth, the lawsuit alleged that this part of the law was driven by unconstitutional sex-based discrimination.

Burke allowed other parts of the law to stand, including one requiring school teachers and nurses to out trans students to their parents and another forbidding doctors from performing gender-affirming surgical procedures on trans youth.

“Doctors had testified that such operations were not being performed on children in Alabama before the law had been enacted,” The New York Times noted.

Alabama lawmakers said that the transphobic law is meant to protect kids from “irreversible” and “experimental” medical treatments “aggressively push[ed]” by doctors and “ideological interest groups,” state lawyers said in court documents. But Burke said Alabama failed to provide “credible evidence to show that transitioning medications are ‘experimental,’” adding that hormones and puberty blockers are “well-established, evidence-based treatments for gender dysphoria in minors.”

“Parents, pediatricians and psychologists — not the state or this court — are best qualified to determine whether transitioning medications are in a child’s best interest on a case-by-case basis,” Burke wrote in his decision.

When signing the bill into law, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said, “I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl. We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life.”

However, her religion-based opinion goes against the best practices of trans-related pediatrics outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association. The organizations find that gender-affirming medical care is medically necessary and reduces suicide and depression among trans youth.

Comedian John Oliver mentioned the state’s law on the Sunday night installment of his cable news program Last Week Tonight.

In the program, Oliver interviewed 15-year-old transgender girl Harleigh Walker, who said, “If I did stop my gender-affirming care, my physical outside wouldn’t reflect who I was inside, and that would, like, completely destroy me mentally and physically.”

Oliver said, “If you can look at Harleigh, or any child, and comfortably say, ‘Take away their care that gives them peace and a sense of self,’ you are a bad person.”

During a hearing in front of the Alabama legislature last year, Dr. Morissa Ladinsky explained that surgery and hormonal therapy for trans youth both involve “lengthy informed consent [and] lengthy mental health oversight.”

Oliver quipped, “Of course, doctors are going to be thoughtful and rigorous when caring for their patients because, unlike the Alabama Legislature, they actually care about kids’ well-being,”

“To trans children in Alabama right now… you are important,” Oliver added. “Your lives are important. I cannot imagine trying to build self-esteem in childhood as your own government attempts to undermine your very existence, but you should know: You are profoundly valuable and you are irreplaceable.”

As of May, 15 Republican-led states have either passed bans on medical care for trans youth or are considering similar laws. Some of the bans have equated gender-affirming care with child abuse and threatened to arrest parents of trans youth, de-transitioning their kids and placing them in state care. Others attack doctors and threaten them with jail time for providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.

These laws are part of a larger nationwide push by Republicans to pass laws targeting LGBTQ youth. Other such laws have attempted to ban trans youth from playing sports or to ban any LGBTQ content from classrooms. These bills’ supporters have said that anyone who opposes the laws are pedophilic “groomers”, language which encourages violence against LGBTQ people and allies.

Recently, LGBTQ lawmakers in 19 states announced their efforts to establish their states as safe harbors for trans kids and families persecuted by laws criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare. These lawmakers will introduce legislation that explicitly protects trans youth’s access to gender-affirming medical care.

Ivey also recently signed a transphobic “bathroom bill” requiring students to use changing and restroom facilities matching the gender listed on their original birth certificates, as well as a “Don’t Say Gay” bill limiting discussion of LGBTQ topics in state classrooms.

Barnette Marched Alongside Proud Boys On January 6

Barnette Marched Alongside Proud Boys On January 6

What confuses me is changelings, people who work with oppressors against their own kind / people. Another word is collaborators. The LGBTQ+ has the Log Cabin Republicans and Peter Thiel, the blacks have people like Candis Owens, Tim Scott, Burgess Owens to name a few. Some claim they like the tax cuts, some are as racist against immigrants as the white Republicans, and some are grifters. I never understood why poor people vote for the party that works against them to help the wealthy. Hugs

Yahoo News reports:

Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette marched with members of a right-wing extremist group prior to the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to footage recently unearthed on social media.

The photos and video showing Barnette marching alongside the Proud Boys originally surfaced on Sunday via writer Chad Loder’s Twitter account. On Monday, the photos were verified by NBC News.

Barnette has been a prominent promoter of election conspiracy theories, including organizing buses to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the violence at the Capitol.

Last night Barnette said this to Fox News:

Well, first of all, allow me to correct you. I was not with the Proud Boys. I was out there because I wanted to hear what the president had to say.

I was also out there because, I’m sure your listeners will understand, the first five rights in the First Amendment—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to petition your government with grievances and freedom to assemble, as well as freedom of the press.

And so, as a law-abiding American citizen, I had every right to go to a rally in support of my president.

unsavedheathen • 15 minutes ago

Just read an interview with 10 Republicans from Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio in the NYT. Unbelievably divorced from historical reality. Disheartening that these, our fellow citizens, most of whom were able to form complete sentences, want to give the “businessman” another shot.

We must show up in November. These people are nuts. And they’ll put Trump back in office if they have their way.

https://www.nytimes.com/202…

Card #ProChoice Boreal • 8 minutes ago

The bad part here is we can’t even get non-Republicans on the local ticket. I get to choose from politically-entrenched MAGA or new-to-politics MAGA.

Boreal Card #ProChoice • 6 minutes ago

For most offices here, the same, but the school board has sane people on it now but some running that want to ban books.

zhera • 25 minutes ago

I don’t know why she’s trying to distance herself from the Proud Boys. She agrees with them on most things, right? Apart from that tiny little detail about skin color, but that part is so small she¨s fine with ignoring it. So why the distancing?

Makoto zhera • 20 minutes ago

Probably the ‘optics’ of the court cases – especially the ones where PBs have been pleading guilty. She’s happy saying the quiet part out loud much of the time, but not being dragged into potential judicial proceedings.

Bob’s Your Uncle – BYU • 27 minutes ago

She looks so fucking nice and normal. If I was a low information voter who didn’t follow politics closely, as a Dem, I might vote for her just based on her appearance, but hopefully they are watching her TV ads with the sound on because she’s as crazy as a bedbug and as evil as Cruella deVille..

Hopefully folks are paying attention in PA. Hard to imagine they wouldn’t be..

Host of Twinkies Bob’s Your Uncle – BYU • 26 minutes ago

Perfect token for helping to sell the White Supremecist narrative.

TnCTampa Bob’s Your Uncle – BYU • 26 minutes ago

Have you met the American electorate. never has there been a more uniformed, stupid, low rent people electing themselves into oblivion

Three TYT videos on the Buffalo shooting, white extremeism, racism, and how Carlson promotes replacement theory.

A white supremacist teenager recently shot and killed 10 people, almost all of them Black, in a Buffalo, New York supermarket. The gunman provides insights into his motivations from a self-published manifesto that was posted online days before he committed the shooting.

“A teenage gunman entranced by a white supremacist ideology known as replacement theory opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday, methodically shooting and killing 10 people and injuring three more, almost all of them Black, in one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history.”

The white supremacist gunman who just killed 10 people, almost all of them Black, provides insights into his motivations from a self-published manifesto that was posted online just before he committed the shooting. He cited 4Chan and the Internet for his rapid white nationalist radicalization, the infamous ‘white replacement theory’, as well as anti-semitic and racist propaganda as reasons for why he wanted to commit the shooting.

“Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo. The baseless conspiracy theory claims that politicians are attempting to wipe out White Americans and their influence by replacing them with non-White immigrants. The theory was cited repeatedly by 18-year-old shooting suspect Payton Gendron in an online document that appeared to have outlined his intention to carry out his planned attack in Buffalo because of its significant population of Black people. Eleven of the 13 people shot at a Tops Friendly Markets store on Saturday were Black, according to police.”

After the Buffalo, New York mass shooting left 10 dead at the hands of the white supremacist shooter, right-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald tried to distract from the event and provide cover for his hate-mongering buddies like Tucker Carlson. Greenwald wrote an entire Substack rant defending how Tucker has made the “white replacement theory” mainstream and more digestible for regular TV viewers by completely ignoring it.

‘Russia is running out of manpower’ and Putin may have to shrink his war aims more: national security analyst

https://www.rawstory.com/russia-invasion-of-ukraine-2657330175/

I want to thank Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal for the link to the below story. Hugs

Russian President Vladmir Putin (Shutterstock)

During a segment on CNN this Monday, national security analyst Beth Sanner addressed Finland and Sweden’s upcoming applications to be members of NATO — a development that’s “exactly the opposite” of what Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to achieve with his invasion of Ukraine.

According to Sanner, anxiety about how Putin will respond is slightly overblown, and she argued that “basically, Putin can’t do anything” and that Putin has already moved the goal posts by declaring the countries’ potential expansion of NATO doesn’t pose a threat to Russia.

“I don’t think there’s that much [Putin] can do, so he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it because it will look stupid,” Sanner said.

Sanner also spoke to Russia’s fledgling military campaign, which has seen significant setbacks due to the ferocity of the Ukrainian military’s defense, saying the world is “starting to see some cracks” in Putin’s stability as a leader due to the fact that “people are starting to recognize” that the Russian government is struggling, especially in light of “anecdotal reports” that some Russian troops are starting to refuse orders.

“Russia is running out of manpower and that means that Putin may have to change his war aims even more narrowly.”

Watch the segment below or at this link.

Shapiro Host Claims White Replacement Theory Is “Just A Fact” And Blames Buffalo Mass Shooting On Lockdown

Shapiro Host Claims White Replacement Theory Is “Just A Fact” And Blames Buffalo Mass Shooting On Lockdown

Media Matters has the transcript:

MATT WALSH (HOST): Because although this — I was going to call him a kid but he’s 18 years-old — this man’s ideology is a mess — he’s, again, a lunatic — all over the place, he does mention the so-called great replacement theory.

And this is what they’re trying to hang around the neck of Tucker Carlson, Fox News, really any conservative, myself included.

Because Tucker Carlson and other conservatives have in the past pointed out that the Democrats have been very open about the fact that, you know, they want to minimize what they call whiteness in America.

And they want to bring in voters, you know, from other countries. They don’t want voter ID laws, you know, they want to be able to bring in the voters and have them vote because they know they’re going to be voting Democrat.

So, they want to replace, especially white male voters, with voters who they think are going to be beholden to them.

Now, this isn’t a conspiracy theory. There’s nothing wild or speculative about it. It’s just a fact. And one of the ways you know that it’s a fact is the left and the media — The New York Times, CNN — they’ve been very open about it, many times.

So if it is a theory — if the great replacement theory is a theory, then it’s a theory propagated by the left. They’re the ones who go around talking about this supposed scourge of whiteness. What’re we going to do to minimize whiteness?

And how are we going to fight against whiteness? So they say all of that and then on the right, if we notice that they’ve said that and we point out that, oh, they said these things, then we’re the ones somehow responsible for a conspiracy theory.

Walsh last appeared on JMG when he declared that lesbians will cease to exist over the next 30 years.

Before that, he appeared here when he called for banning adoption by LGBT people. And before that, he appeared here when he called for dissolving the United States.

Walsh also claims that shooting people “is not against the law.” Early this year, Walsh declared that “everybody would be happier” if arranged marriages were mandatory.

If we're reading this lunatic's "manifesto" and taking it seriously then what about the part where he says he was radicalized from spending all his time online during the COVID lockdowns? I guess we're just glossing over that part. Not the conversation the media wants to have.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 15, 2022

https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3988446/embed/embed

https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3988446/embed/embed

(((heleninedinburgh))) • 4 hours ago

It’s sort of funny that Shapiro is the one to give these people a platform.
Like… does he think that they’re not antisemites? Or does he just think that they’ll never get into power? Or that they’ll leave him alone because he’s ‘one of the good ones’? Fucking come on you dim little shite.

(((heleninedinburgh))) Bruno • 3 hours ago

The alt-right/great replacement slogan is literally ‘Jews will not replace us,’ how can that possibly be spun as anything other than antisemitism? Even by republicans!

don (((heleninedinburgh))) • 3 hours ago

Chanted by torch bearing brownshirts in Charlottesville. And flushed right down the memory hole by the MSM

Hank Bruno • 3 hours ago

The only reason the “Pro-Israel” Party exist now, is that they need the State of Israel to exist, along with a certain number of Jews to be there, in order for them to fulfill “The Rapture”!!!
Otherwise, they are the SAME Anti-Semites, that they were before, they realized the “need”!!!

Boreal • 4 hours ago

Sure it was the lockdowns that radicalized him, not the RWNJ sites that he visited on social media and online and would have still used whether covid happened or not.

Friday • 4 hours ago • edited

“It’s the Democrats’ fault when my followers do as I say!” -Christonazis.

Bannon Claims Buffalo Mass Shooter Is “A Gay Guy”

Bannon Claims Buffalo Mass Shooter Is “A Gay Guy”

“He’s an Azov, he’s a gay guy, he’s got all these insignias. He comes across – he says he’s a left-wing authoritarian, an eco authoritarian. It’s in the manifesto, which they won’t release. I don’t know, just release it, it’s not gonna warp people’s mind. People can make decisions, parents got to be on top of stuff. Why are the parents that – is this kid going to church? Is he in church?” – Steve Bannon, inventing things that nobody else who have actually read the shooter’s manifesto have reported.

Speculating on motivations, Steve Bannon claimed the Buffalo shooter was “a gay guy” and asked where the shooter was attending church. pic.twitter.com/d6VK0PbFBu
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 16, 2022

Steve Bannon claims the media is “inappropriately” focused on Tucker Carlson in the wake of the Buffalo white supremacist shooting. pic.twitter.com/4dyROPBcYU
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) May 16, 2022

crewman • 3 hours ago

“Let’s just put a lot of crazy shit out there that the left and media will spend time responding to so they don’t focus as much on the fact that we 100% enabled, encouraged, and applauded the mass murderer terrorist.”

Steverino crewman • an hour ago

Distraction and deflection. With a heapin’ helpin’ of projection.

Yves R. Mektin • 3 hours ago

By the end of the week, on the rightwing media, Payton Gendron will be a Native American vegan lesbian senior member of the Biden administration.

HeyYouKidsGetOffMyLawn Yves R. Mektin • 2 hours ago

and a member of both BLM and Antifa.

Octoberfurst Yves R. Mektin • 2 hours ago

Don’t forget he’s also Antifa! He did it just to make the Right look bad because, as we all know, the Right has no problem with people of color!

Rebecca Gardner • 3 hours ago

What does that have to do with anything.

I am so tired of the daily batshittery, pull whatever out of your ass, “news.”

Smear the Queer…
Find someone whose done a horrendous act and smear them as being gay soas to smear the gay community as harbingers of evil. Ties in well with his anti-woke and his don’t say gay support.

Melissia • 3 hours ago

Anything to distract from the fact that he is a white supremacist who openly stated in his manifesto that he was motivated by white supremacy.

Elmer Fudpucker • 2 hours ago

Fat, drunk and stupid.

danolgb • 3 hours ago

“It’s in the manifesto, which they won’t release.”

If they won’t release it, how do you know it’s in it. I’ve seen other people on the right claiming he’s a Bernie supporter. They’re desperate to shift the blame.

Misutaa Roboto • 2 hours ago

Hear that, folks? He wasn’t motivated by the stuff you’ve been hearing on my radio show like he said. It was really something about the environment all along, or some kind of fаggot shit like that. Yeah…that’s it.

Now that we’ve settled that, back to how the Jews are using the blacks to overwhelm and replace the poor, embattled white race.

Florida Elections Now In The Hands Of QAnon Nutbag

Florida Elections Now In The Hands Of QAnon Nutbag

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced outgoing Secretary of State Laurel Lee on Friday with state Rep. Cord Byrd, who cursed at Black Democratic lawmakers during the session and whose wife has made comments supporting QAnon and the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots.

DeSantis recently appointed Byrd’s wife, Esther Byrd, a former Marine who works in her husband’s law office, to the state Board of Education. She defended theories of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy cult that says the world is ruled by Satan-worshipping child molesters, after the couple was seen flying a QAnon flag on their boat.

They both quit Twitter for more than a year after she posted comments supporting the Capitol insurrection. “ANTIFA and BLM can burn and loot buildings and violently attack police and citizens. But when Trump supporters peacefully protest, suddenly ‘Law and Order’ is all they can talk about!” she tweeted.

Read the full article.

We need a Secretary of State who’s top priority is free and fair elections, not a hyper-partisan GOP loyalist who takes orders from Ron DeSantis.

Our right to vote is sacred and I worry about what this could mean for our democracy.
— Rep. Carlos G Smith (@CarlosGSmith) May 13, 2022

.@GovRonDeSantis has appointed widely acknowledged #QAnon believer Esther Byrd to Florida’s state Board of Education.

Background:https://t.co/6Nnib7v0GK #FlaPol
— Peter Schorsch (@PeterSchorschFL) March 11, 2022

Esther Byrd, defender of Jan. 6 rioters, named to @GovRonDeSantis' Board of Education

Reporting by @AGGancarski https://t.co/AqJgCLrQaI #FlaPol pic.twitter.com/GrswSxx9A5
— Florida Politics (@Fla_Pol) March 11, 2022

Ron DeSantis' pick to oversee Florida elections—and their new election police force—has been known to fly a QAnon flag from his boat. His wife, who defended QAnon and Capitol rioters was appointed to the Florida Board of Education.https://t.co/8tkCaD0Vv8
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) May 14, 2022

I was in the House Chamber during the violent #January6th Insurrection. This appointment is a betrayal of our democracy. https://t.co/huT1ftGu6g
— Darren Soto (@DarrenSoto) May 14, 2022

For those who need a reminder on who Cord Byrd is … and this is just the tip of the iceberg. #NoGood 🤦‍♂️ https://t.co/VjhqtfloxU pic.twitter.com/ZOVTDSl1hC
— Joshua Hicks 🦃🍂🍁 (@joshuarhicks) May 13, 2022

Ragnar_Lothbrok • 6 hours ago

EMERGENCY:
Voting rights act needed asap

Gregory In Seattle Ragnar_Lothbrok • 6 hours ago

Manchin would never, ever allow that.

Serene Pumpkin Dwight Williamson • 6 hours ago

I hope you are able to vote in November, and that your vote gets counted, and that the result (if the Democrat wins) is allowed to stand.

Darreth • 6 hours ago

Since this is perfectly legal and there’s no recourse we are watching the real time dissolution of the republic.

A QAnon based nation with nukes will not allow the rest of the world to survive.

The Sentinel • 6 hours ago

Oh brother….

Esther’s FB profile: https://www.facebook.com/EB…

Unapologetically American. Unapologetically Christian.
I’m a strong, conservative woman with a strong, conservative husband and strong, conservative kids – just trying to do our part to save America from rabid, radical leftists! God Bless America!

crewman The Sentinel • 6 hours ago

No one is asking her to apologize for being conservative.
No one is asking her to apologize for being Christian.
But we are asking her to quit calling us “rabid” and “radical” just because we aren’t conservative or Christian.

Ann Kah RIck Notch • 6 hours ago

When truth died, so did democracy. Trump followed Hitler’s playbook regarding the media.

William • 6 hours ago

Think of the time and money saved by immediately declaring Trump the winner of the 2024 election in Florida!

boobert • 6 hours ago • edited

That’s how you win elections.

Serene Pumpkin boobert • 6 hours ago

No, that’s how you steal elections.

Adam Schmidt boobert • 5 hours ago

More like that’s how you end democracy by having sham elections.

DeSantis Claims State Will Assume Control Of Disney’s Special Government District, Not The Local Counties

DeSantis Claims State Will Assume Control Of Disney’s Special Government District, Not The Local Counties

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

The state will likely assume control of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District, rather than local governments absorbing it, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday. DeSantis said he is working on a proposal that likely will be considered by the Legislature after the November elections.

Reedy Creek, which encompasses Disney World and neighboring properties, is set to dissolve on June 1, 2023. The governor’s office hasn’t released a written plan detailing how the dissolution of Disney World’s private government will unfold.

At an event in Sanford, DeSantis also insisted Central Florida taxpayers will not be forced to absorb the district’s nearly $1 billion in debt. Under state law, the district’s assets and liabilities would be transferred to the “local general purpose government” when it’s abolished.

Read the full article. In other words, every Floridian will eat that billion dollars, not just the residents of Orange and Osceola counties.